The Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription, (also Kandahar Edict of Ashoka, sometimes "Chehel Zina Edict"), is a famous bilingual edict in Greek and Aramaic, proclaimed and carved in stone by the Indian Maurya Empire ruler Ashoka around 258 BCE. It was discovered in 1958,[1] it is considered as one of the several "Minor Rock Inscriptions" of Ashoka, by opposition to his "Major Rock Edicts" which contain portions or the totality of his Edicts from 1 to 14.[2] Two edicts in Afghanistan have been found with Greek inscriptions, one of these being this bilingual edict in Greek language and Aramaic, the other being the Kandahar Greek Inscription in Greek only, this bilingual edict was found on a rock[3] on the mountainside of Chehel Zina (also Chilzina, or Chil Zena, "Forty Steps"),[1] in the vicinity of Kandahar, which forms the western natural bastion of Old Kandahar, or Alexandria Arachosia, Kandahar’s Old City. The Edict is still in place on the mountainside, and a cast is visible in Kabul Museum;[4] in the Edict, Ashoka advocates the adoption of "Piety" (using the Greek term Eusebeia for Dharma) to the Greek community.[5]

Chil Zena ("40 steps") complex, offering a commanding view of Kandahar, and on the mountainside of which the bilingual edict is carved.[1] Chil Zena commands the entrance to the city of Kandahar when coming from the west.

Ashoka proclaims his faith, 10 years after the violent beginning of his reign, and affirms that living beings, human or animal, cannot be killed in his realm; in the Hellenistic part of the Edict, he translates the Dharma he advocates by "Piety" εὐσέβεια, Eusebeia, in Greek. The usage of Aramaic reflect the fact that Aramaic (the so-called Official Aramaic) had been the official language of the Achaemenid Empire which had ruled in those parts until the conquests of Alexander the Great. The Aramaic is not purely Aramaic, but seems to incorporate some elements of Iranian.[6] According to D.D.Kosambi, the Aramaic is not an exact translation of the Greek, and it seems rather that both were translated separately from an original text in Magadhi, the common official language of India at the time, used on all the other Edicts of Ashoka in Indian language, even in such linguistically distinct areas as Kalinga,[5] it is written in Aramaic alphabet.

This inscription is actually rather short and general in content, compared to most Major Rock Edicts of Ashoka, including the other inscription in Greek of Ashoka in Kandahar, the Kandahar Greek Edict of Ashoka, which contains long portions of the 12th and 13th edicts, and probably contained much more since it was cut off at the beginning and at the end.

The proclamation of this Edict in Kandahar is usually taken as proof that Ashoka had control over that part of Afghanistan, presumably after Seleucos had ceded this territory to Chandragupta Maurya in their 305 BCE peace agreement.[7] The Edict also shows the presence of a sizable Greek population in the area, but it also shows the lingering importance of Aramaic, several decades after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire,[1][8] at the same epoch, the Greeks were firmly established in the newly created Greco-Bactrian kingdom under the reign of Diodotus I, and particularly in the border city of Ai-Khanoum, not far away in the northern part of Afghanistan.

An 1881 photo showing the ruined Old Kandaharcitadel ("Zor Shar") where the second Greek edict was discovered.[1]

Ancient city of Old Kandahar (red) and Chil Zena mountainous outcrop (blue) on the western side of Kandahar.

The other well-known Greek inscription, the Kandahar Greek Edict of Ashoka, was found 1.5 kilometers to the south of the Bilingual Rock Inscription, in the ancient city of Old Kandahar (known as Zor Shar in Pashto, or Shahr-i-Kona in Dari), Kandahar, in 1963.[7] It is thought that Old Kandahar was founded in the 4th century BCE by Alexander the Great, who gave it the Ancient Greek name Αλεξάνδρεια Aραχωσίας (Alexandria of Arachosia), the Edict is a Greek version of the end of the 12th Edicts (which describes moral precepts) and the beginning of the 13th Edict (which describes the King's remorse and conversion after the war in Kalinga). This inscription does not use another language in parallel,[10] it is a plaque of limestone, which probably had belonged to a building, and its size is 45x69.5 cm.[3][7] The beginning and the end of the fragment are lacking, which suggests the inscription was original significantly longer, and may have included all fourteen of Ashoka's Edicts, as in several other locations in India, the Greek language used in the inscription is of a very high level and displays philosophical refinement. It also displays an in-depth understanding of the political language of the Hellenic world in the 3rd century BCE, this suggest the presence of a highly cultured Greek presence in Kandahar at that time.[3]

Two other inscriptions in Greek are known at Kandahar. One is a dedication by a Greek man who names himself "son of Aristonax" (3rd century BCE), the other is an elegiac composition by Sophytos son of Naratos (2nd century BCE).[11]

Greek language
–
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Li

Aramaic language
–
Aramaic is a language or group of languages belonging to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic language family. More specifically, it is part of the Northwest Semitic group, the Aramaic alphabet was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to the Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic alphabets. During its approximately 3000 years of history, Aram

Kandahar
–
Kandahar or Qandahar is the second-largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 491,500 as of 2012. Formerly called Alexandria Arachosia, the city is named after Alexander the Great, Kandahar is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at an altitude of 1,010 m above sea level. The Arghandab River runs along

Afghanistan
–
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the n

Kabul Museum
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The National Museum of Afghanistan, also known as the Afghan National Museum or sometimes the Kabul Museum, is a two-story building located 9 km southwest of the center of Kabul City in Afghanistan. As of 2014, the museum is under major expansion according to standards, with a larger size adjoining garden for visitors to relax. The museums collecti

1.
Outside the Afghan National Museum in 2010

2.
Inside the museum in 2008

3.
Ivory carving from Kapissa, capital of the Kushan Empire, 1st to 2nd Century AD.

Maurya Empire
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The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power founded by Chandragupta Maurya which dominated ancient India between c. 322 and 187 BCE. Originating from the kingdom of Magadha in the Indo-Gangetic Plain in the side of the Indian subcontinent. The empire was the largest to have existed in the Indian subcontinent. By 316

Ashoka
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Ashoka was an ancient Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from c. 268 to 232 BCE. One of Indias greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over a realm that stretched from the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan to the state of Bangladesh in the east. It covered the entire Indian subcontinent except parts of

1.
A c. 1st century BCE/CE relief from Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh (India). The figure in the centre may represent Ashoka.

Edicts of Ashoka
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These inscriptions were dispersed throughout the areas of modern-day Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Afghanistan and Pakistan and represent the first tangible evidence of Buddhism. The edicts describe in detail the Ashokas view about dhamma, an earnest attempt to solve some of problems that a complex society faced, according to the edicts, the extent of

Old Kandahar
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Old Kandahar is a historical section of the city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. It is thought its foundation was laid out by Alexander the Great in 330 BC under the name Alexandria Arachosia. and served as the local seat of power for many rulers in the last 2,000 years. It became part of empires, including the Mauryans, Indo-Scythians, Sassan

Alexandria Arachosia
–
Alexandria in Arachosia was a city in ancient times that is now called Kandahar in Afghanistan. It was one of more than seventy cities founded or renamed by Alexander the Great, Arachosia is the Greek name of an ancient province of the Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian empires. The province of Arachosia corresponds to todays southeastern Afghanista

Dharma
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Dharma is a key concept with multiple meanings in the Indian religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. There is no single word translation for dharma in western languages, in Buddhism dharma means cosmic law and order, but is also applied to the teachings of the Buddha. In Buddhist philosophy, dhamma/dharma is also the term for phenomena

3.
Above rock inscription is from Indian Emperor Asoka, from 258 BC, and found in Afghanistan. The inscription renders the word Dharma in Sanskrit as Eusebeia in Greek, suggesting Dharma in ancient India meant spiritual maturity, devotion, piety, duty towards and reverence for human community.

4.
Sikhism

Gandhara
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Gandhara is also an ancient name for Kandahar, Afghanistan. Gandhāra was an ancient Indic kingdom situated in the region of Pakistan. It encompassed the Peshawar valley and later extended to both Jalalabad district of modern-day Afghanistan as well as Taxila, in Pakistan. During the Achaemenid period and Hellenistic period, its city was Charsadda.

Islamabad
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Islamabad is the capital city of Pakistan located within the federal Islamabad Capital Territory. The city is the seat of Pakistan and is administered by the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation. Islamabad is located in the Pothohar Plateau in the part of the country. The region has historically been a part of the crossroads of Punjab, Islamabad was

Gedrosia
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Gedrosia is the Hellenized name of the part of coastal Baluchistan that roughly corresponds to todays Makran. The area which is named Gedrosia, in books about Alexander the Great and his successors, the native name of Gedrosia might have been Gwadar as there are two towns by that name and a bay in central Makran. The Gedrosians are known to have pr

1.
Map showing the route of Alexander the Great through Gedrosia

Greek conquests in India
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In ancient times, trade between the Indian subcontinent and Greece flourished with silk, spices and gold being traded. The Greeks invaded India several times, starting with the conquest of Alexander the Great, the most famous part of his wanderings is his expedition to India, which is said to have lasted several years. These travels took something

Greco-Bactrian kingdom
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The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was – along with the Indo-Greek Kingdom – the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BC. It was centered on the north of present-day Afghanistan, the expansion of the Greco-Bactrians into present-day eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan from 180 BC established

Ai-Khanoum
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Ai-Khanoum or Ay Khanum was one of the primary cities of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. Previous scholars have argued that Ai Khanoum was founded in the late 4th century BC, recent analysis now strongly suggests that the city was founded c.280 BC by the Seleucid king Antiochus I. The city is located in Takhar Province, northern Afghanistan, at the con

1.
Coin of Eucratides I (171–145 BC), one of the Hellenistic rulers of ancient Ai-Khanoum.

3.
Corinthian capital, found at Ai-Khanoum in the citadel by the troops of Commander Massoud, 2nd century BC.

Aramaic
–
Aramaic is a language or group of languages belonging to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic language family. More specifically, it is part of the Northwest Semitic group, the Aramaic alphabet was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to the Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic alphabets. During its approximately 3000 years of history, Aram

Official Aramaic language
–
Old Aramaic refers to the earliest stage of the Aramaic language, considered to give way to Middle Aramaic by the 3rd century. After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, local vernaculars became increasingly prominent, fanning the divergence of an Aramaic dialect continuum, Ancient Aramaic refers to the earliest known period of the language, from its

Achaemenid Empire
–
The Achaemenid Empire, also called the Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The empires successes inspired similar systems in later empires and it is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon.

Alexander the Great
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Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of twenty and he was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of historys most successful military

Iranian languages
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The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, which in turn are a branch of the Indo-European language family. The speakers of Iranian languages are known as Iranian people, historical Iranian languages are grouped in three stages, Old Iranian, Middle Iranian, and New Iranian. Of the Old Iranian languages, th

1.
Geographic distribution of modern Iranian languages

2.
Iranian languages family tree

Aramaic alphabet
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The ancient Aramaic alphabet is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet and became distinctive from it by the 8th century BCE. It was used to write the Aramaic language and had displaced the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet for the writing of Hebrew, the letters all represent consonants, some of which are also used as matres lectionis to indicate long vowels. Ra

Seleucus I Nicator
–
Seleucus I Nicator /səˈljuːkəs naɪˈkeɪtər/ was one of the Diadochi. However, after the outbreak of the Wars of the Diadochi in 322, Perdiccas was betrayed and assassinated in a conspiracy by Seleucus, Peithon and Antigenes in Pelusium sometime in either 321 or 320 BC. At the Partition of Triparadisus in 321 BC, Seleucus was appointed Satrap of Baby

Chandragupta Maurya
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Chandragupta Maurya was the founder of the Maurya Empire and the first emperor to unify north and south west of present-day India into one state. He ruled from 324 BCE until his retirement and abdication in favour of his son, Bindusara. Chandragupta Maurya was a figure in the history of India. Prior to his consolidation of power, most of the Indian

Diodotus I
–
Diodotus I Soter was Seleucid satrap of Bactria, rebelled against Seleucid rule soon after the death of Antiochus II in c.255 or 246 BC, and wrested independence for his territory. This event is recorded by Trogus, Prol,4,5, where he is called Theodotus, Strabo xi.515. The name apparently is related to the title Soter he uses for himself and his po

4.
Gold stater of Diodotus in the name of the Seleucid emperor Antiochus I Soter, c. 250 BCE. Diodotus effectively declared his independence from Seleucid control by placing his own portrait on the obverse of the coin, and replacing Antiochos's preferred deity Apollo with the Zeus shown on this coin.

Hebrew alphabet
–
Historically, there have been two separate abjad scripts to write Hebrew. In the remainder of this article, the term Hebrew alphabet refers to the Jewish square script unless otherwise indicated, the Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters. It does not have case, but five letters have different forms used at the end of a word. Hebrew is written right to lef

1.
A Jewish stele near the archeological excavations of the early medieval walls of Serdica

Citadel
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A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a fortress, castle, or fortified center, the term is a diminutive of city and thus means little city, so called because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. It is positioned to be the last line of defense, should the enemy breach the other components of

1.
In this seventeenth-century plan of the fortified city of Casale Monferrato the citadel is the large star-shaped structure on the left.

Pashto
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Pashto, known in Persian literature as Afghānistani and in Urdu and Hindi literature as Paṭhānī, is the South-Central Asian language of the Pashtuns. Its speakers are called Pashtuns or Pukhtuns and sometimes Afghans or Pathans and it is an Eastern Iranian language, belonging to the Indo-European family. Pashto is one of the two languages of Afghan

Dari language
–
Dari or Dari Persian is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the officially recognized and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language. Hence, it is known as Afghan Persian in many Western sources. As defined in the Constitution of Afghanistan, it is one of the two languages of Afghanistan, th

List of Edicts of Ashoka
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The following is an overview of Edicts of Ashoka, and where they are located. The translating of these pillars was a point in history. New York, United States, Harper Collins Publishers, chapter 7, Power and Piety, The Maurya Empire, c. A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India, From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, the Geographical Locations

1.
Distribution of the Edicts of Ashoka

Greco-Buddhism
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Buddhism was then adopted in Central and Northeastern Asia from the 1st century AD, ultimately spreading to China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Siberia, and Vietnam. Alexander founded several cities in his new territories in the areas of the Amu Darya and Bactria, and Greek settlements further extended to the Khyber Pass, Gandhara, and the Punjab

International Standard Book Number
–
The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning

1.
A 13-digit ISBN, 978-3-16-148410-0, as represented by an EAN-13 bar code

Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a

1.
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.

LIST OF IMAGES

1.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population

2.
Aramaic language
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Aramaic is a language or group of languages belonging to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic language family. More specifically, it is part of the Northwest Semitic group, the Aramaic alphabet was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to the Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic alphabets. During its approximately 3000 years of history, Aramaic has served variously as a language of administration of empires, therefore, there is not one singular, static Aramaic language, each time and place rather has had its own variation. The Aramaic languages are now considered endangered, Aram is used as a proper name of several people in the Torah including descendants of Shem, Nahor, and Jacob. Ancient Aram, bordering northern Israel and now called Syria, is considered the epicenter of Aramaic. The language is often considered to have originated within Assyria. Interestingly, the Christian New Testament, for which the constituent texts are written in Koine Greek. The Hellenized Jewish community of Alexandria instead translated Aramaic to the Syrian tongue, a related language, Mlahsô, has recently become extinct. Mandaeans living in the Khuzestan Province of Iran and scattered throughout Iraq and it is quite distinct from any other Aramaic variety. Central Neo-Aramaic consists of Turoyo and the recently extinct Mlahsô, very little remains of Western Aramaic. All these speakers of Modern Western Aramaic are fluent in Arabic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic are preserved in liturgical and literary usage. Each dialect of Aramaic has its own pronunciation, and it would not be feasible here to go into all these properties. Aramaic has a palette of 25 to 40 distinct phonemes. The open vowel is an open near-front unrounded vowel and it usually has a back counterpart, and a front counterpart. There is much correspondence between these vowels between dialects, there is some evidence that Middle Babylonian dialects did not distinguish between the short a and short e. In West Syriac dialects, and possibly Middle Galilean, the long a became the o sound, the open e and back a are often indicated in writing by the use of the letters א alaph or ה he. The close front vowel is the long i and it has a slightly more open counterpart, the long e, as in the final vowel of café. Both of these have shorter counterparts, which tend to be pronounced more open

3.
Kandahar
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Kandahar or Qandahar is the second-largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 491,500 as of 2012. Formerly called Alexandria Arachosia, the city is named after Alexander the Great, Kandahar is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at an altitude of 1,010 m above sea level. The Arghandab River runs along the west of the city, the city of Kandahar has a population of 557,118. It has 15 districts and a land area of 27,337 hectares. The total number of dwellings in Kandahar is 61,902, Kandahar is one of the most culturally significant cities of the Pashtuns and has been their traditional seat of power for more than 200 years. It is a trading center for sheep, wool, cotton, silk, felt, food grains, fresh and dried fruit. The region produces fine fruits, especially pomegranates and grapes, and the city has plants for canning, drying, and packing fruit, the area is believed to be the birthplace of cannabis indica. The region around Kandahar is one of the oldest known human settlements, Alexander the Great had laid-out the foundation of what is now Old Kandahar in the 4th century BC and gave it the Ancient Greek name Αλεξάνδρεια Aραχωσίας. Many empires have long fought over the city due to its location along the trade routes of southern, central. In 1709, Mirwais Hotak made the region an independent kingdom, in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the last Afghan empire, made it the capital of modern Afghanistan. A temple to the deified Alexander as well as an inscription in Greek and Aramaic by Emperor Ashoka, Ibn Batutta mentions Kandahar in the 14th century by describing it as a large and prosperous town three nights journey from Ghazni. It has been then mentioned extensively by Mughal Emperor Babur and others, an alternative story describes Khandahar as Gandhara in Mahabharata ruled by Suvala and later by Shakuni. The princess of Hastinapur, Gandhari was born in Gandhara, a folk etymology offered is that the word kand or qand in Persian and Pashto means candy. The name Candahar or Kandahar in this form probably translates to candy area and this probably has to do with the location being fertile and historically known for producing fine grapes, pomegranates, apricots, melons and other sweet fruits. Ernst Herzfeld claimed Kandahar perpetuated the name of the Indo-Parthian king Gondophares, excavations of prehistoric sites by archaeologists such as Louis Dupree and others suggest that the region around Kandahar is one of the oldest human settlements known so far. Early peasant farming villages came into existence in Afghanistan ca.5000 B. C. or 7000 years ago, deh Morasi Ghundai, the first prehistoric site to be excavated in Afghanistan, lies 27 km southwest of Kandahar. Another Bronze Age village mound site with multiroomed mud-brick buildings dating from the same period sits nearby at Said Qala, Bronze Age pottery, copper and bronze horse trappings and stone seals were found in the lowermost levels in the nearby cave called Shamshir Ghar. In the Seistan, southwest of these Kandahar sites, two teams of American archaeologists discovered sites relating to the 2nd millennium B. C, while the Diadochi were warring amongst themselves, the Mauryan Empire was developing in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent

Kandahar
Kandahar
Kandahar
Kandahar

4.
Afghanistan
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Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north and its territory covers 652,000 km2, making it the 41st largest country in the world. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, the political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country and it remained peaceful during Zahir Shahs forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of wars that devastated much of Afghanistan. The name Afghānistān is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, the root name Afghan was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix -stan means place of in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, however, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. An important site of historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and it has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, in more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well, after 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan, among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, the region at the time was referred to as Ariana

5.
Kabul Museum
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The National Museum of Afghanistan, also known as the Afghan National Museum or sometimes the Kabul Museum, is a two-story building located 9 km southwest of the center of Kabul City in Afghanistan. As of 2014, the museum is under major expansion according to standards, with a larger size adjoining garden for visitors to relax. The museums collection had earlier been one of the most important in Central Asia, with the start of the civil war in 1992, the museum was looted numerous times resulting in a loss of 70% of the 100,000 objects on display. Since 2007, a number of organizations have helped to recover over 8,000 artifacts. Approximately 843 artifacts were returned by the United Kingdom in 2012, the Afghan National Museum was built in 1919 during the reign of King Amanullah Khan. The collection inside the museum was transferred from another location in the city, in 1973, a Danish architect was hired to design a new building for the museum, but the plans were never carried out due to political instability. The museums collection had been one of the most important in Central Asia, in 1989, the Bactrian Gold had been moved to an underground vault at the Central Bank of Afghanistan. In March 1994, the museum, which had used as a military base, was struck by rocket fire. In September 1996, staff at the completed the cataloging of the remaining materials. Between 2003 and 2006, about $350,000 was spent to refurbish the building, fortunately, many of the most precious objects had been sealed in metal boxes and removed for safety and were recovered and inventoried in 2004. Some archeological objects were found in vaults in Kabul, while a collection was discovered in Switzerland. In 2012, a firm from Spain won a competition for the new design of the Afghan National Museum. Work began in 2013 to expand the museum according to standards, with a large adjoining garden for visitors to relax. Many treasures of ivory are stored there, as are antiquities from Kushan, early Buddhism, one of the most famous pieces in the museum, and known to have survived the turbulent period in the 1990s is the Rabatak Inscription of King Kanishka. As the National Museum Kabul has been the repository for many of the most spectacular finds in the country. The National Museum has a collection of coins, the Austrian numismatist Robert Göbl reported it contained 30,000 objects during a UNESCO sponsored audit of the collection. It is unknown how much the collection has grown since or what was lost during the wars since. The collection contains the bulk of material recovered in Afghanistan

6.
Maurya Empire
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The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power founded by Chandragupta Maurya which dominated ancient India between c. 322 and 187 BCE. Originating from the kingdom of Magadha in the Indo-Gangetic Plain in the side of the Indian subcontinent. The empire was the largest to have existed in the Indian subcontinent. By 316 BCE the empire had fully occupied Northwestern India, defeating and conquering the satraps left by Alexander, Chandragupta then defeated the invasion led by Seleucus I, a Macedonian general from Alexanders army, gaining additional territory west of the Indus River. The Maurya Empire was one of the largest empires of the world in its time and it declined for about 50 years after Ashokas rule ended, and it dissolved in 185 BCE with the foundation of the Shunga dynasty in Magadha. After the Kalinga War, the Empire experienced nearly half a century of peace, Mauryan India also enjoyed an era of social harmony, religious transformation, and expansion of the sciences and of knowledge. Ashoka sponsored the spreading of Buddhist ideals into Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, West Asia, the population of the empire has been estimated to be about 50–60 million, making the Mauryan Empire one of the most populous empires of Antiquity. Archaeologically, the period of Mauryan rule in South Asia falls into the era of Northern Black Polished Ware, the Arthashastra and the Edicts of Ashoka are the primary sources of written records of Mauryan times. The Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath has been made the national emblem of India, the Maurya Empire was founded by Chandragupta Maurya, with help from Chanakya, at Takshashila. Chanakya swore revenge and vowed to destroy the Nanda Empire, meanwhile, the conquering armies of Alexander the Great refused to cross the Beas River and advance further eastward, deterred by the prospect of battling Magadha. Alexander returned to Babylon and re-deployed most of his troops west of the Indus River, soon after Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BCE, his empire fragmented, and local kings declared their independence, leaving several smaller disunited satraps. Chandragupta Mauryas rise to power is shrouded in mystery and controversy, on one hand, a number of ancient Indian accounts, such as the drama Mudrarakshasa by Vishakhadatta, describe his royal ancestry and even link him with the Nanda family. A kshatriya clan known as the Mauryas are referred to in the earliest Buddhist texts, however, any conclusions are hard to make without further historical evidence. Chandragupta first emerges in Greek accounts as Sandrokottos, as a young man he is said to have met Alexander. He is also said to have met the Nanda king, angered him, Chanakyas original intentions were to train a guerilla army under Chandraguptas command. The Mudrarakshasa of Vishakhadatta as well as the Jaina work Parishishtaparvan talk of Chandraguptas alliance with the Himalayan king Parvatka, Chanakya encouraged Chandragupta Maurya and his army to take over the throne of Magadha. These men included the general of Taxila, accomplished students of Chanakya, the representative of King Porus of Kakayee, his son Malayketu. The Macedonians may then have participated, together with other groups, the Mudrarakshasa of Visakhadutta as well as the Jaina work Parisishtaparvan talk of Chandraguptas alliance with the Himalayan king Parvatka, often identified with Porus

7.
Ashoka
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Ashoka was an ancient Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from c. 268 to 232 BCE. One of Indias greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over a realm that stretched from the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan to the state of Bangladesh in the east. It covered the entire Indian subcontinent except parts of present-day Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, the empires capital was Pataliputra, with provincial capitals at Taxila and Ujjain. In about 260 BCE, Ashoka waged a destructive war against the state of Kalinga. He conquered Kalinga, which none of his ancestors had done and he embraced Buddhism after witnessing the mass deaths of the Kalinga War, which he himself had waged out of a desire for conquest. Ashoka reflected on the war in Kalinga, which reportedly had resulted in more than 100,000 deaths and 150,000 deportations, Ashoka converted gradually to Buddhism beginning about 263 BCE. He was later dedicated to the propagation of Buddhism across Asia, Ashoka regarded Buddhism as a doctrine that could serve as a cultural foundation for political unity. Ashoka is now remembered as a philanthropic administrator, in the Kalinga edicts, he addresses his people as his children, and mentions that as a father he desires their good. Ashokas name Aśoka means painless, without sorrow in Sanskrit, in his edicts, he is referred to as Devānāmpriya, and Priyadarśin. His fondness for his names connection to the Saraca asoca tree, along with the Edicts of Ashoka, his legend is related in the 2nd-century CE Ashokavadana, and in the Sri Lankan text Mahavamsa. The emblem of the modern Republic of India is an adaptation of the Lion Capital of Ashoka, Ashoka was born to the Mauryan emperor, Bindusara and a relatively lower ranked wife, Subhadrangī. Ashoka became a great emperor despite having an appearance that was unfavorable to his father. He was the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Mauryan dynasty, since, according to Roman historian Appian, Ashokas grandfather Chandragupta had made a marital alliance with Seleucus, there is a possibility that Ashoka had a Seleucid Greek grandmother. The Avadana texts mention that his mother was queen Subhadrangī, according to the Ashokavadana, she was the daughter of a Brahmin from the city of Champa. Though a palace intrigue kept her away from the emperor, this eventually ended and it is from her exclamation I am now without sorrow, that Ashoka got his name. The Divyāvadāna tells a story, but gives the name of the queen as Janapadakalyānī. Ashoka had several siblings, all of whom were his half-brothers from the other wives of Bindusara. His fighting qualities were apparent from an age and he was given royal military training

8.
Edicts of Ashoka
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These inscriptions were dispersed throughout the areas of modern-day Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Afghanistan and Pakistan and represent the first tangible evidence of Buddhism. The edicts describe in detail the Ashokas view about dhamma, an earnest attempt to solve some of problems that a complex society faced, according to the edicts, the extent of Buddhist proselytism during this period reached as far as the Mediterranean, and many Buddhist monuments were created. These inscriptions proclaim Ashokas adherence to the Buddhist philosophy which, as in Hinduism is called dharma, the inscriptions show his efforts to develop the Buddhist dharma throughout his kingdom. In these inscriptions, Ashoka refers to himself as Beloved servant of the Gods The identification of Devanampiyadasi with Ashoka was confirmed by an inscription discovered in 1915 by C, beadon, a British gold-mining engineer, at Maski, a village in Raichur district of Karnataka. Another minor rock edict is found at the village Gujarra in Datia district of Madhya Pradesh and this also shows the name Ashoka in addition to usual Devanampiyadasi. The inscriptions found in the part of India were written in Magadhi Prakrit using the Brahmi script. These edicts were deciphered by British archaeologist and historian James Prinsep. The edicts were based on Ashokas ideas on administration and behaviour of people towards one another, now it is conquest by Dhamma that Beloved-Servant-of-the-Gods considers to be the best conquest. Rock Edict Nb13 The distance of 600 yojanas corresponds to the distance between the center of India and Greece, roughly 4,000 miles. Amtiyoko refers to Antiochus II Theos of Syria, who controlled the Seleucid Empire from Syria to Bactria in the east from 305 to 250 BCE, and was therefore a direct neighbor of Ashoka. Turamaye refers to Ptolemy II Philadelphos of Egypt, king of the dynasty founded by Ptolemy I, amtikini refers to Antigonus II Gonatas of Macedon. Maka refers to Magas of Cyrene, alikasudaro refers to Alexander II of Epirus. Some scholars, however, point to the presence of Buddhist communities in the Hellenistic world from that time, the pre-Christian monastic order of the Therapeutae may have drawn inspiration for its ascetic lifestyle from contact with Buddhist monasticism, although the foundation and Scriptures were Jewish. A possible Buddhist gravestone from the Ptolemaic period has been found by Flinders Petrie, decorated with a depiction of what may be Wheel of the Law and Trishula. Commenting on the presence of Buddhists in Alexandria, Robert Linssen pointed out that It was later in this place that one of the most active centres of Christianity was established. These communities therefore seem to have been significant during the reign of Ashoka. A notable mention references aspects of Greek society, there is no country, except among the Greeks, where these two groups, Brahmans and ascetics, are not found, and there is no country where people are not devoted to one or another religion. Rock Edict Nb13 Two edicts in Afghanistan have been found with Greek inscriptions, one of these being a bilingual edict in Greek language, and the king abstains from living beings, and other men and those who huntsmen and fishermen of the king have desisted from hunting. Kambojas are a people of Central Asian origin who had settled first in Arachosia and Drangiana, the Nabhakas, the Nabhapamkits, the Bhojas, the Pitinikas, the Andhras and the Palidas are other people under Ashoka’s rule

9.
Old Kandahar
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Old Kandahar is a historical section of the city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. It is thought its foundation was laid out by Alexander the Great in 330 BC under the name Alexandria Arachosia. and served as the local seat of power for many rulers in the last 2,000 years. It became part of empires, including the Mauryans, Indo-Scythians, Sassanids, Arabs, Zunbils, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Timurids, Mughals, Safavids, Hotakis. It was one of the cities of Arachosia, a historical region sitting between Greater Iran and the Indus Valley Civilization. The city was fought over by the Persians and the Mughals, until it was destroyed by Nader Shah and his Afsharid forces in 1738 after defeating Shah Hussain Hotak. After the destruction of old city all the remaining inhabitants were relocated to a nearby area which became known as Naderabad for a short time. By 1750, Ahmad Shah Durrani had laid out the current city of Kandahar and turned it into the capital of his Durrani Empire

10.
Alexandria Arachosia
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Alexandria in Arachosia was a city in ancient times that is now called Kandahar in Afghanistan. It was one of more than seventy cities founded or renamed by Alexander the Great, Arachosia is the Greek name of an ancient province of the Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian empires. The province of Arachosia corresponds to todays southeastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan, as far as this place the land is under the rule of the Parthians. The remains of Alexandria in Arachosia are today found in the tell of Old Kandahar citadel in the portion of the modern city. The citadel tell was excavated by the British Society for South Asian Studies through the 1970s and these excavations indicate that the Islamic walls were based on those from classical times indicating what might be a square shaped town, but one highly modified by the unusual topography. A triangular shaped portion of the adjoining the Greek town is from the Buddhist era. Alexander appears to have founded his town on the site of 6th century BC Persian garrison point, the pass, river and junction of three long distance trade routes made the location of strategic importance. To date, no Greek buildings have found, but numerous coins, inscriptions. Further discoveries are anticipated as excavation reaches deeper strata of the tell, the citadel walls have been shown to have contained circular towers similar to those at Farah, Balkh and Nadi Ali Sorkh Gdagh, although these could be Islamic in age. Kandahar Old Kandahar Alexander the Great, his towns Arachosia Alexandria in Arachosia ARACHOSIA, province 2012 Encyclopædia Iranica

11.
Dharma
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Dharma is a key concept with multiple meanings in the Indian religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. There is no single word translation for dharma in western languages, in Buddhism dharma means cosmic law and order, but is also applied to the teachings of the Buddha. In Buddhist philosophy, dhamma/dharma is also the term for phenomena, Dharma in Jainism refers to the teachings of tirthankara and the body of doctrine pertaining to the purification and moral transformation of human beings. For Sikhs, the word means the path of righteousness. The Classical Sanskrit noun dharma is a derivation from the root dhṛ, the word dharma was already in use in the historical Vedic religion, and its meaning and conceptual scope has evolved over several millennia. The antonym of dharma is adharma, the Classical Sanskrit noun dharma is a derivation from the root dhṛ, which means to hold, maintain, keep, and takes a meaning of what is established or firm, and hence law. It is derived from an older Vedic Sanskrit n-stem dharman-, with a meaning of bearer, supporter. In the Rigveda, the word appears as an n-stem, dhárman-, figuratively, it means sustainer and supporter. It is semantically similar to the Greek Ethos, in Classical Sanskrit, the noun becomes thematic, dharma-. The word dharma derives from Proto-Indo-European root *dʰer-, which in Sanskrit is reflected as class-1 root √dhṛ, etymologically it is related to Avestan √dar-, Latin firmus, Lithuanian derė́ti, Lithuanian dermė and darna and Old Church Slavonic drъžati. Classical Sanskrit word dharmas would formally match with Latin o-stem firmus from Proto-Indo-European *dʰer-mo-s holding, were it not for its development from earlier Rigvedic n-stem. In Classical Sanskrit, and in the Vedic Sanskrit of the Atharvaveda, in Pāli, it is rendered dhamma. In some contemporary Indian languages and dialects it occurs as dharm. Dharma is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion and it has multiple meanings in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It is difficult to provide a concise definition for dharma, as the word has a long and varied history and straddles a complex set of meanings. There is no equivalent single word translation for dharma in western languages, there have been numerous, conflicting attempts to translate ancient Sanskrit literature with the word dharma into German, English and French. The concept, claims Paul Horsch, has caused difficulties for modern commentators and translators. Dharma root is dhri, which means ‘to support, hold and it is the thing that regulates the course of change by not participating in change, but that principle which remains constant

Dharma
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Rituals and rites of passage
Dharma
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Sannyasa and stages of life
Dharma
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Above rock inscription is from Indian Emperor Asoka, from 258 BC, and found in Afghanistan. The inscription renders the word Dharma in Sanskrit as Eusebeia in Greek, suggesting Dharma in ancient India meant spiritual maturity, devotion, piety, duty towards and reverence for human community.
Dharma
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Sikhism

12.
Gandhara
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Gandhara is also an ancient name for Kandahar, Afghanistan. Gandhāra was an ancient Indic kingdom situated in the region of Pakistan. It encompassed the Peshawar valley and later extended to both Jalalabad district of modern-day Afghanistan as well as Taxila, in Pakistan. During the Achaemenid period and Hellenistic period, its city was Charsadda. It is mentioned in the Zend Avesta as Vaēkərəta, the sixth most beautiful place on earth and it was known as the crown jewel of Bactria and also held sway over Takṣaśilā. Gandhara existed since the time of the Rigveda and formed part of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC, after it was conquered by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1001 AD, the name Gandhara disappeared. During the Muslim period, the area was administered from Lahore or from Kabul, during Mughal times, it was an independent district which included the Kabul province. The name Gāndhāra occurs later in the classical Sanskrit of the epics and it is recorded in Avestan as Vaēkərəta. The Gandhari people are a tribe mentioned in the Rigveda, the Atharvaveda, one proposed origin of the name is from the Sanskrit word gandha, meaning perfume and referring to the spices and aromatic herbs which they traded and with which they anointed themselves. Some authors have connected the modern name Kandahar to Gandhara, Herodotus records that those Iranic tribes, which were adjacent to the city of Caspatyrus and the district of Pactyïce, had customs similar to the Bactrians, and are the most warlike amongst them. These are also the people who obtain gold from the ant-hills of the adjoining desert, on the identity of Caspatyrus, there have been two opinions, one equating it with Kabul, the other with the name of Kashmir. The boundaries of Gandhara varied throughout history, sometimes the Peshawar Valley and Taxila were collectively referred to as Gandhara, sometimes the Swat Valley was also included. The heart of Gandhara, however, was always the Peshawar Valley, the kingdom was ruled from capitals at Kapisa, Pushkalavati, Taxila, Puruṣapura and in its final days from Udabhandapura on the River Indus. Evidence of the Stone Age human inhabitants of Gandhara, including stone tools, the artifacts are approximately 15,000 years old. More recent excavations point to 30,000 years before the present, the region shows an influx of southern Central Asian culture in the Bronze Age with the Gandhara grave culture, and the nucleus of Vedic civilisation. This culture flourished from 1500 to 500 BC and its evidence has been discovered in the hilly regions of Swat and Dir, and even at Taxila. The name of the Gandhāris is attested in the Rigveda and in ancient inscriptions dating back to Achaemenid Persia, the Behistun inscription listing the 23 territories of King Darius I includes Gandāra along with Bactria and Sattagydia. In the book Histories by Herodotus, Gandhara is named as a source of tax collections for King Darius, the Gandhāris, along with the Balhika, Mūjavants, Angas, and the Magadhas, are also mentioned in the Atharvaveda, as distant people

13.
Islamabad
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Islamabad is the capital city of Pakistan located within the federal Islamabad Capital Territory. The city is the seat of Pakistan and is administered by the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation. Islamabad is located in the Pothohar Plateau in the part of the country. The region has historically been a part of the crossroads of Punjab, Islamabad was built during the 1960s to replace Karachi as Pakistans capital. The city is known for the presence of several parks and forests, including the Margalla Hills National Park, the city is home several landmarks, including the Faisal Mosque, the largest mosque in South Asia and the fourth largest in the world. Other landmarks include the Pakistans National Monument and Democracy Square, Islamabad is a gamma+ world city, it is categorised as very high on the Human Development Index, the highest in the country. The city has the highest cost of living in Pakistan, and its population is dominated by middle, the city is home to sixteen universities, including the Quaid-e-Azam University and NUST. The city is one of the safest in Pakistan, and has a surveillance system with 1,900 CCTV cameras. The name of the city, Islamabad is derived from two words, Islam and abad, meaning City of Islam, Islam is an Arabic word which refers to the religion of Islam and -abad is a Persian place name that means inhabited place or city. Islamabad Capital Territory, located on the Pothohar Plateau of the Punjab region, is considered one of the earliest sites of settlement in Asia. Some of the earliest Stone Age artefacts in the world have found on the plateau. Rudimentary stones recovered from the terraces of the Soan River testify to the endeavours of early man in the inter-glacial period, items of pottery and utensils dating back to prehistory have been found. Excavations have revealed evidence of a prehistoric culture, one end of the Indus Valley Civilization flourished here between the 23rd and 18th centuries BC. Later the area was a settlement of the Aryan community. A Buddhist town once existed in the region, many great armies such as those of Zahiruddin Babur, Genghis Khan, Timur and Ahmad Shah Durrani used the corridor through Islamabad on their way to invade the rest of the Indian Subcontinent. Modern Islamabad is based on the old settlement known as Saidpur, the British took control of the region from the Sikhs in 1849 and built South Asias largest cantonment in the region. When Pakistan gained independence in 1947, the port city of Karachi was its first national capital. In the 1960s, Islamabad was constructed as a capital for several reasons

14.
Gedrosia
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Gedrosia is the Hellenized name of the part of coastal Baluchistan that roughly corresponds to todays Makran. The area which is named Gedrosia, in books about Alexander the Great and his successors, the native name of Gedrosia might have been Gwadar as there are two towns by that name and a bay in central Makran. The Gedrosians are known to have prevented the Indian Mauryans from capturing the western-most parts of their state. Upon reaching the Ocean, Alexander the Great divided his forces in half, the other half of his army was to accompany him on a march through the Gedrosian desert, inland from the ocean. Throughout the 60-day march through the desert, Alexander lost at least 12,000 soldiers, in addition to livestock, camp followers. Some historians say he lost three-quarters of his army to the desert conditions along the way. However, this figure was based on exaggerated numbers in his forces prior to the march. There are two competing theories for the purpose of Alexanders decision to march through the rather than along the more hospitable coast. The first argues that this was an attempt to punish his men for their refusal to continue eastward at the Hyphasis River, the other argues that Alexander was attempting to imitate and succeed in the actions of Cyrus the Great, who had failed to cross the desert. The decision to cross the Gedrosian Desert, whatever his intentions, is regarded as the largest blunder in Alexanders Asiatic campaign

Gedrosia
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Map showing the route of Alexander the Great through Gedrosia

15.
Greek conquests in India
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In ancient times, trade between the Indian subcontinent and Greece flourished with silk, spices and gold being traded. The Greeks invaded India several times, starting with the conquest of Alexander the Great, the most famous part of his wanderings is his expedition to India, which is said to have lasted several years. These travels took something of the form of military conquests, according to Diodorus Siculus he conquered the world except for Britain. Returning in triumph he undertook to introduce his worship into Greece, in 327 BC Alexander the Great began his foray into Punjab. King Ambhi, ruler of Taxila, surrendered the city to Alexander, many people had fled to a high fortress/rock called Aornos. Aornos was taken by Alexander by storm after a successful siege, Alexander fought an epic battle against the Indian monarch Porus in the Battle of Hydaspes. After victory, Alexander made an alliance with Porus and appointed him as satrap of his own kingdom, Alexander continued to conquer all the headwaters of the Indus River. East of Porus kingdom, near the Ganges River, was the kingdom of Magadha. And there was no boasting in these reports, for Androcottus, who reigned there not long afterwards, made a present to Seleucus of five hundred elephants, and with an army of six hundred thousand men overran and subdued all India. Alexander, after the meeting with his officer Coenus, was convinced that it was better to return, Alexander was forced to turn south, conquering his way down the Indus to the Arabian Sea. Alexander left behind Greek forces which established themselves in the city of Taxila, several generals, such as Eudemus and Peithon governed the newly established province until around 316 BC. One of them, Sophytes, was an independent Greek prince in the Punjab, the Macedonians may then have participated, together with other groups, in the armed uprising of Chandragupta Maurya against the Nanda Dynasty. The Mudrarakshasa of Visakhadutta as well as the Jaina work Parisishtaparvan talk of Chandraguptas alliance with the Himalayan king Parvatka, Seleucus I Nicator, founder of the Seleucid dynasty and one of Alexanders former generals, invaded what is now Punjab in northern India and Pakistan in 305 BC. Details of Seleucuss conflict with Chandragupta Maurya are lacking but Chandragupta had the best of it, Chandragupta and Seleucus finally concluded an alliance. Seleucus gave him his daughter in marriage, ceded the territories of Arachosia, Seleucus also sent an ambassador named Megasthenes to Chandraguptas court, who repeatedly visited Chandraguptas capital of Pataliputra. Megasthenes wrote detailed descriptions of India and Chandraguptas reign, continued diplomatic exchanges and good relations are between the Seleucids and the Mauryan emperors are then documented throughout the duration of the Mauryan empire. In 180 BC, the Indo-Greeks, invaded parts of northwest and northern India and they are an extension of the Greco-Bactrian dynasty of Greek kings located in neighbouring Bactria. The descendants of the area called Shinmar, in Punjab which lies beside the Indus River, trace their genealogy back to the Ancient Greeks, the Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic word “Shin”, which symbolically looks like a crown, was analogous to the Ancient Greek “Sigma”

Greek conquests in India
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Campaigns and landmarks of Alexander's invasion of India.
Greek conquests in India
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Hellenistic satrapies in India after Alexander.
Greek conquests in India
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Indo-Greek Kingdoms in 100 BC.
Greek conquests in India
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The founder of the Indo-Greek KingdomDemetrius I (205 – 171 BC), wearing the scalp of an elephant, symbol of his conquests in India.

16.
Greco-Bactrian kingdom
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The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was – along with the Indo-Greek Kingdom – the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BC. It was centered on the north of present-day Afghanistan, the expansion of the Greco-Bactrians into present-day eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan from 180 BC established the Indo-Greek Kingdom, which was to last until around 10 AD. Diodotus, the satrap of Bactria founded the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom when he seceded from the Seleucid Empire around 250 BC, the preserved ancient sources are somewhat contradictory, and the exact date of Bactrian independence has not been settled. Somewhat simplified, there is a chronology and a low chronology for Diodotos’ secession. The high chronology has the advantage of explaining why the Seleucid king Antiochus II issued very few coins in Bactria, as Diodotos would have become independent there early in Antiochus reign. On the other hand, the low chronology, from the mid-240s BC, has the advantage of connecting the secession of Diodotus I with the Third Syrian War, a catastrophic conflict for the Seleucid Empire. Diodotus, the governor of the cities of Bactria, defected and proclaimed himself king, all the other people of the Orient followed his example. Their cities were Bactra, and Darapsa, and several others, among these was Eucratidia, which was named after its ruler. In 247 BC, the Ptolemaic empire captured the Seleucid capital, in the resulting power vacuum, the satrap of Parthia proclaimed independence from the Seleucids, declaring himself king. A decade later, he was defeated and killed by Arsaces of Parthia and this cut Bactria off from contact with the Greek world. Overland trade continued at a rate, while sea trade between Greek Egypt and Bactria developed. Euthydemus, a Magnesian Greek according to Polybius and possibly satrap of Sogdiana, overthrew the dynasty of Diodotus I around 230-220 BC, and the Iaxartes forms also the boundary between the Sogdians and the nomads. Euthydemus was attacked by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III around 210 BC, although he commanded 10,000 horsemen, Euthydemus initially lost a battle on the Arius and had to retreat. Following the departure of the Seleucid army, the Bactrian kingdom seems to have expanded, in the west, areas in north-eastern Iran may have been absorbed, possibly as far as into Parthia, whose ruler had been defeated by Antiochus the Great. These territories possibly are identical with the Bactrian satrapies of Tapuria, the Greek historian Strabo too writes that, they extended their empire even as far as the Seres and the Phryni. Several statuettes and representations of Greek soldiers have been north of the Tien Shan, on the doorstep to China. Greek influences on Chinese art have also been suggested, designs with rosette flowers, geometric lines, and glass inlays, suggestive of Hellenistic influences, can be found on some early Han dynasty bronze mirrors. The practice of exporting Chinese metals, in iron, for trade is attested around that period

Greco-Bactrian kingdom
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Approximate maximum extent of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom circa 180 BC, including the regions of Tapuria and Traxiane to the West, Sogdiana and Ferghana to the north, Bactria and Arachosia to the south.
Greco-Bactrian kingdom
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History of Afghanistan
Greco-Bactrian kingdom
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Gold coin of Diodotus c. 245 BC. The Greek inscription reads: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΔΙΟΔΟΤΟΥ – "(of) King Diodotus".
Greco-Bactrian kingdom
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Remains of a Hellenistic capital found in Balkh, ancient Bactra.

17.
Ai-Khanoum
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Ai-Khanoum or Ay Khanum was one of the primary cities of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. Previous scholars have argued that Ai Khanoum was founded in the late 4th century BC, recent analysis now strongly suggests that the city was founded c.280 BC by the Seleucid king Antiochus I. The city is located in Takhar Province, northern Afghanistan, at the confluence of the Oxus river and the Kokcha river, and at the doorstep of the Indian subcontinent. Ai-Khanoum was one of the points of Hellenism in the East for nearly two centuries, until its annihilation by nomadic invaders around 145 BC about the time of the death of Eucratides. The site was excavated through archaeological searches by a French DAFA mission under Paul Bernard between 1964 and 1978, as well as Russian scientists. The searches had to be abandoned with the onset of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, during which the site was looted and used as a battleground, the choice of this site for the foundation of a city was probably guided by several factors. The region, irrigated by the Oxus, had a rich agricultural potential, mineral resources were abundant in the back country towards the Hindu Kush, especially the famous so-called rubies from Badakshan, and gold. Its location at the junction between Bactrian territory and nomad territories to the north, ultimately allowed access to commerce with the Chinese empire, lastly, Ai-Khanoum was located at the very doorstep of Ancient India, allowing it interact directly with the Indian subcontinent. Numerous artefacts and structures were found, pointing to a high Hellenistic culture and it has all the hallmarks of a Hellenistic city, with a Greek theatre, gymnasium and some Greek houses with colonnaded courtyards. Overall, Aï-Khanoum was an extremely important Greek city, characteristic of the Seleucid Empire and it seems the city was destroyed, never to be rebuilt, about the time of the death of the Greco-Bactrian king Eucratides around 145 BC. Ai-Khanoum may have been the city in which Eucratides was besieged by Demetrius and its size was considerable by Classical standards, larger than the theater at Babylon, but slightly smaller than the theater at Epidaurus. A huge palace in Greco-Bactrian architecture, somehow reminiscent of formal Persian palatial architecture A gymnasium, a dedication in Greek to Hermes and Herakles was found engraved on one of the pillars. The dedication was made by two men with Greek names, various temples, in and outside the city. The largest temple in the city contained a monumental statue of a seated Zeus. Of special notice, a huge foot fragment in excellent Hellenistic style was recovered, since the sandal of the foot fragment bears the symbolic depiction of Zeus thunderbolt, the statue is thought to have been a smaller version of the Statue of Zeus at Olympia. He used to hold a stick in his left hand. In some cases, only the hands and feet would be made in marble, various inscriptions in Classical, non-barbarized, Greek have been found in Ai-Khanoum. Païs ôn kosmios ginou hèbôn enkratès, mesos dikaios presbutès euboulos teleutôn alupos, various Greek inscriptions were also found in the Treasury of the palace, indicating the contents of various vases, and names of the administrators in charge of them

Ai-Khanoum
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Coin of Eucratides I (171–145 BC), one of the Hellenistic rulers of ancient Ai-Khanoum.
Ai-Khanoum
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Ai-Khanoum was located at the extreme east of Bactria.
Ai-Khanoum
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Corinthian capital, found at Ai-Khanoum in the citadel by the troops of Commander Massoud, 2nd century BC.

18.
Aramaic
–
Aramaic is a language or group of languages belonging to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic language family. More specifically, it is part of the Northwest Semitic group, the Aramaic alphabet was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to the Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic alphabets. During its approximately 3000 years of history, Aramaic has served variously as a language of administration of empires, therefore, there is not one singular, static Aramaic language, each time and place rather has had its own variation. The Aramaic languages are now considered endangered, Aram is used as a proper name of several people in the Torah including descendants of Shem, Nahor, and Jacob. Ancient Aram, bordering northern Israel and now called Syria, is considered the epicenter of Aramaic. The language is often considered to have originated within Assyria. Interestingly, the Christian New Testament, for which the constituent texts are written in Koine Greek. The Hellenized Jewish community of Alexandria instead translated Aramaic to the Syrian tongue, a related language, Mlahsô, has recently become extinct. Mandaeans living in the Khuzestan Province of Iran and scattered throughout Iraq and it is quite distinct from any other Aramaic variety. Central Neo-Aramaic consists of Turoyo and the recently extinct Mlahsô, very little remains of Western Aramaic. All these speakers of Modern Western Aramaic are fluent in Arabic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic are preserved in liturgical and literary usage. Each dialect of Aramaic has its own pronunciation, and it would not be feasible here to go into all these properties. Aramaic has a palette of 25 to 40 distinct phonemes. The open vowel is an open near-front unrounded vowel and it usually has a back counterpart, and a front counterpart. There is much correspondence between these vowels between dialects, there is some evidence that Middle Babylonian dialects did not distinguish between the short a and short e. In West Syriac dialects, and possibly Middle Galilean, the long a became the o sound, the open e and back a are often indicated in writing by the use of the letters א alaph or ה he. The close front vowel is the long i and it has a slightly more open counterpart, the long e, as in the final vowel of café. Both of these have shorter counterparts, which tend to be pronounced more open

19.
Official Aramaic language
–
Old Aramaic refers to the earliest stage of the Aramaic language, considered to give way to Middle Aramaic by the 3rd century. After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, local vernaculars became increasingly prominent, fanning the divergence of an Aramaic dialect continuum, Ancient Aramaic refers to the earliest known period of the language, from its origin until it becomes the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent and Bahrain. It was the language of the Aramaean city-states of Damascus, Hamath, there are inscriptions that evidence the earliest use of the language, dating from the 10th century BCE. The inscriptions are mostly diplomatic documents between Aramaean city-states, the alphabet of Aramaic then seems to be based on Phoenician, and there is a unity in the written language. It seems that in time, a more refined alphabet, suited to the needs of the language, distinctive royal inscriptions at Samal have led to some scholars suggesting a distinctive Samalian or Yaudic variant of Old Aramaic. From 700 BCE, the language began to spread in all directions, different dialects emerged in Assyria, Babylonia, the Levant and Egypt. However, the Akkadian-influenced Aramaic of Assyria, and then Babylon, as described in 2 Kings 18,26, Hezekiah, king of Judah, negotiates with Assyrian ambassadors in Aramaic so that the common people would not understand. Around 600 BCE, Adon, a Canaanite king, used Aramaic to write to the Egyptian Pharaoh, chaldee or Chaldean Aramaic used to be common terms for the Aramaic of the Chaldean dynasty of Babylonia. It was used to describe Biblical Aramaic, which was, however and it is not to be confused with the modern language Chaldean Neo-Aramaic. The first old Aramaic inscription to be found in Europe was the Carpentras stele, frye reclassifies Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Achaemenid territories, suggesting then that the Achaemenid-era use of Aramaic was more pervasive than generally thought. For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, Imperial Aramaic or a similar dialect would remain an influence on the various native Iranian languages, Aramaic script and, as ideograms, Aramaic vocabulary would survive as the essential characteristics of the Pahlavi writing system. One of the largest collections of Imperial Aramaic texts is that of the Persepolis fortification tablets, many of the extant documents witnessing to this form of Aramaic come from Egypt, Elephantine in particular. Of them, the best known is the Wisdom of Ahiqar, Achaemenid Aramaic is sufficiently uniform that it is often difficult to know where any particular example of the language was written. Only careful examination reveals the occasional loanword from a local language, a group of thirty Aramaic documents from Bactria has been discovered, and an analysis was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdiana. Old Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew both form part of the group of Northwest Semitic languages, and during antiquity, there may still have been substantial mutual intelligibility. In the Pesahim, Tractate 87b, Hanina bar Hama said that God sent the exiled Jews to Babylon because language is akin to the Leshon Hakodesh, the conquest by Alexander the Great did not destroy the unity of Aramaic language and literature immediately. Aramaic that bears a close resemblance to that of the 5th century BC can be found right up to the early 2nd century BCE

20.
Achaemenid Empire
–
The Achaemenid Empire, also called the Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The empires successes inspired similar systems in later empires and it is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in a Hellenistic style in the empire as well. By the 7th century BC, the Persians had settled in the portion of the Iranian Plateau in the region of Persis. From this region, Cyrus the Great advanced to defeat the Medes, Lydia, Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered the empire in its entirety by 330 BC. Upon his death, most of the former territory came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire. The Persian population of the central plateau reclaimed power by the second century BC under the Parthian Empire, the historical mark of the Achaemenid Empire went far beyond its territorial and military influences and included cultural, social, technological and religious influences as well. Many Athenians adopted Achaemenid customs in their lives in a reciprocal cultural exchange. The impact of Cyruss edict is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts, the empire also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Iran. Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details Due to the duration of their reigns, Smerdis, Xerxes II. The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here, the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished, they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Achaemenid Empire was not the first Iranian empire, as by 6th century BC another group of ancient Iranian peoples had established the short lived Median Empire. The Iranian peoples had arrived in the region of what is today Iran c.1000 BC and had for a number of centuries fallen under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. However, the Medes and Persians, Cimmerians, Persians and Chaldeans played a role in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire. The term Achaemenid means of the family of the Achaemenis/Achaemenes, despite the derivation of the name, Achaemenes was himself a minor seventh-century ruler of the Anshan in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Assyria. At some point in 550 BC, Cyrus rose in rebellion against the Medes, eventually conquering the Medes and creating the first Persian empire

21.
Alexander the Great
–
Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of twenty and he was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of historys most successful military commanders. During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16, after Philips assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his fathers Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia, in 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of battles, most notably the battles of Issus. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety, at that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. He sought to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea and invaded India in 326 BC and he eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexanders surviving generals, Alexanders legacy includes the cultural diffusion which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt, Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and he is often ranked among the most influential people in human history. He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his wife, Olympias. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his wife for some time. Several legends surround Alexanders birth and childhood, sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wifes womb with a seal engraved with a lions image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of dreams, that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb. On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and it was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception

22.
Iranian languages
–
The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, which in turn are a branch of the Indo-European language family. The speakers of Iranian languages are known as Iranian people, historical Iranian languages are grouped in three stages, Old Iranian, Middle Iranian, and New Iranian. Of the Old Iranian languages, the better understood and recorded ones are Old Persian and Avestan, Middle Iranian languages included Middle Persian, Parthian, and Bactrian. As of 2008, there were an estimated 150–200 million native speakers of Iranian languages, ethnologue estimates there are 86 Iranian languages, the largest among them being Persian, Pashto and Kurdish. The term Iranian is applied to any language which descends from the ancestral Proto-Iranian language, Iranian derives from the Persian and Sanskrit origin word Arya. The use of the term for the Iranian language family was introduced in 1836 by Christian Lassen, robert Needham Cust used the term Irano-Aryan in 1878, and Orientalists such as George Abraham Grierson and Max Müller contrasted Irano-Aryan and Indo-Aryan. Some recent scholarship, primarily in German, has revived this convention, the Eastern Iranian languages subdivided into, Southeastern, of which Pashto is the dominant member, Northeastern, by far the smallest branch, of which Ossetian is the dominant member. All Iranian languages are descended from an ancestor, Proto-Iranian. In turn, and together with Proto-Indo-Aryan and the Nuristani languages, the Indo-Iranian languages are thought to have originated in Central Asia. The Andronovo culture is the candidate for the common Indo-Iranian culture ca.2000 BC. It was situated precisely in the part of Central Asia that borders present-day Russia. Of that variety of languages/dialects, direct evidence of two have survived. These are, Avestan, the two languages/dialects of the Avesta, i. e. the liturgical texts of Zoroastrianism, Old Persian, the native language of a south-western Iranian people known as Persians. Indirectly attested Old Iranian languages are discussed below, Old Persian is the Old Iranian dialect as it was spoken in south-western Iran by the inhabitants of Parsa, who also gave their name to their region and language. The language of the Avesta is subdivided into two dialects, conventionally known as Old Avestan, and Younger Avestan. These terms, which date to the 19th century, are slightly misleading since Younger Avestan is not only much younger than Old Avestan, the Old Avestan dialect is very archaic, and at roughly the same stage of development as Rigvedic Sanskrit. Unlike Old Persian, which has Middle Persian as its known successor, such hypothetical Old Iranian languages include Carduchi and Old Parthian. Additionally, the existence of unattested languages can sometimes be inferred from the impact they had on neighbouring languages, such transfer is known to have occurred for Old Persian, which has a Median substrate in some of its vocabulary

23.
Aramaic alphabet
–
The ancient Aramaic alphabet is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet and became distinctive from it by the 8th century BCE. It was used to write the Aramaic language and had displaced the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet for the writing of Hebrew, the letters all represent consonants, some of which are also used as matres lectionis to indicate long vowels. Rather, it is a different type, the earliest inscriptions in the Aramaic language use the Phoenician alphabet. Over time, the alphabet developed into the form shown below, Aramaic gradually became the lingua franca throughout the Middle East, with the script at first complementing and then displacing Assyrian cuneiform, as the predominant writing system. Imperial Aramaic was highly standardised, its orthography was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect and was influenced by Old Persian. Both were in use through the Achaemenid Persian period, but the cursive form steadily gained ground over the lapidary, the Aramaic script would survive as the essential characteristics of the Iranian Pahlavi writing system. A group of 30 Aramaic documents from Bactria has been recently discovered, an analysis was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC in the Persian Achaemenid administration of Bactria, the widespread usage of Achaemenid Aramaic in the Middle East led to the gradual adoption of the Aramaic alphabet for writing Hebrew. Formerly, Hebrew had been using an alphabet closer in form to that of Phoenician. After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the unity of the Imperial Aramaic script was lost, the Hebrew and Nabataean alphabets, as they stood by the Roman era, were little changed in style from the Imperial Aramaic alphabet. A cursive Hebrew variant developed from the early centuries AD, the Old Turkic script is generally considered to have its ultimate origins in Aramaic, in particular via the Pahlavi or Sogdian alphabets, as suggested by V. Thomsen, or possibly via Karosthi. Aramaic is also considered to be the most likely source of the Brahmi script, ancestor of the Brahmic family of scripts, today, Biblical Aramaic, Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects and the Aramaic language of the Talmud are written in the Hebrew alphabet. Syriac and Christian Neo-Aramaic dialects are written in the Syriac alphabet, Mandaic is written in the Mandaic alphabet. The near-identity of the Aramaic and the classical Hebrew alphabets caused Aramaic text to be mostly in the standard Hebrew script in scholarly literature. In Maloula, one of few surviving communities in which a Western Aramaic dialect is still spoken and they started to use the Syriac alphabet instead. In Aramaic writing, Waw and Yodh serve a double function, originally, they represented only the consonants w and y, but they were later adopted to indicate the long vowels ū and ī respectively as well. In the latter role, they are known as matres lectionis or mothers of reading. Ālap, likewise, has some of the characteristics of a mater lectionis because in initial positions, it indicates a glottal stop, among Jews, the influence of Hebrew often led to the use of Hē instead, at the end of a word

24.
Seleucus I Nicator
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Seleucus I Nicator /səˈljuːkəs naɪˈkeɪtər/ was one of the Diadochi. However, after the outbreak of the Wars of the Diadochi in 322, Perdiccas was betrayed and assassinated in a conspiracy by Seleucus, Peithon and Antigenes in Pelusium sometime in either 321 or 320 BC. At the Partition of Triparadisus in 321 BC, Seleucus was appointed Satrap of Babylon under the new regent Antipater, but almost immediately, the wars between the Diadochi resumed and Antigonus forced Seleucus to flee Babylon. Seleucus was only able to return to Babylon in 312 BC with the support of Ptolemy, from 312 BC, Seleucus ruthlessly expanded his dominions and eventually conquered the Persian and Median lands. Seleucus ruled not only Babylonia, but the entire eastern part of Alexanders empire. Seleucus victories against Antigonus and Lysimachus left the Seleucid dynasty virtually unopposed in Asia, however, Seleucus also hoped to take control of Lysimachus European territories, primarily Thrace and Macedon itself. But upon arriving in Thrace in 281 BC, Seleucus was assassinated by Ptolemy Ceraunus, the assassination of Seleucus destroyed Seleucid prospects in Thrace and Macedon, and paved the way for Ptolemy Ceraunus to absorb much of Lysimachus former power in Macedon. Seleucus was succeeded by his son Antiochus I as ruler of the Seleucid empire, Seleucus was the son of Antiochus. It is possible that Antiochus was a member of an upper Macedonian noble family, Seleucus mother was supposedly called Laodice, but nothing else is known of her. Later, Seleucus named a number of cities after his parents, Seleucus was born in Europos, located in the northern part of Macedonia. Just a year before his birth, the Paeonians invaded the region, Philip defeated the invaders and only a few years later utterly subdued them under Macedonian rule. Seleucus year of birth is unclear, justin claims he was 77 years old during the battle of Corupedium, which would place his year of birth at 358 BC. Appianus tells us Seleucus was 73 years old during the battle, eusebius of Caesarea, however, mentions the age of 75, and thus the year 356 BC, making Seleucus the same age as Alexander the Great. This is most likely propaganda on Seleucus part to him seem comparable to Alexander. As a teenager, Seleucus was chosen to serve as the kings page and it was customary for all male offspring of noble families to first serve in this position and later as officers in the kings army. A number of legends, similar to those told of Alexander the Great, were told of Seleucus and it was said Antiochus told his son before he left to battle the Persians with Alexander that his real father was actually the god Apollo. The god had left a ring with a picture of an anchor as a gift to Laodice, Seleucus had a birthmark shaped like an anchor. It was told that Seleucus sons and grandsons also had similar birthmarks, the story is similar to the one told about Alexander

Seleucus I Nicator
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A Roman copy of a Greek statue of Seleucus I found in Herculaneum. Now located at the Naples National Archaeological Museum.
Seleucus I Nicator
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Seleucus led the Royal Hypaspistai during Alexander's Persian campaign.
Seleucus I Nicator
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Ptolemy, an officer under Alexander the Great, was nominated as the satrap of Egypt. Ptolemy made Egypt independent and proclaimed himself King and Pharaoh.
Seleucus I Nicator
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Damaged Roman copy of a bust of Seleucus I, Louvre

25.
Chandragupta Maurya
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Chandragupta Maurya was the founder of the Maurya Empire and the first emperor to unify north and south west of present-day India into one state. He ruled from 324 BCE until his retirement and abdication in favour of his son, Bindusara. Chandragupta Maurya was a figure in the history of India. Prior to his consolidation of power, most of the Indian subcontinent was divided into mahajanapadas, Chandragupta succeeded in conquering and subjugating almost all of the Indian subcontinent by the end of his reign, except Tamil Nadu and modern-day Odisha. His empire extended from Bengal in the east to Aria or Herat in the west, to the Himalayas and Kashmir in the north and it was the largest empire yet seen in Indian history. In Greek and Latin accounts, Chandragupta is known as Sandrokottos and he became well known in the Hellenistic world for conquering Alexander the Greats easternmost satrapies, and for defeating the most powerful of Alexanders successors, Seleucus I Nicator, in battle. By 323 BC he freed the piece of territory of India that was controlled by Seleuces, the Greek diplomat Megasthenes, who visited the Maurya capital Pataliputra, is an important source of Maurya history. After unifying much of India, Chandragupta and his chief advisor Chanakya passed a series of major economic and he established a strong central administration patterned after Chanakyas text on politics, the Arthashastra. Chandraguptas India was characterised by an efficient and highly organised bureaucratic structure with a civil service. Due to its structure, the empire developed a strong economy, with internal and external trade thriving. In both art and architecture, the Maurya Empire made important contributions, deriving some of its inspiration from the culture of the Achaemenid Empire, Chandraguptas reign was a time of great social and religious reform in India. Buddhism and Jainism became increasingly prominent, according to Jain accounts, Chandragupta abdicated his throne in favour of his son Bindusara, embraced Jainism, and followed Bhadrabahu and other monks to South India. He is said to have ended his life at Shravanabelagola through Sallekhana, the sources which describe the life of Chandragupta Maurya includes Jain, Buddhist, Brahmanical, Latin and Greek sources. Jain sources are Bhadrabahus Kalpasutra and Hemachandras Parisishtaparvan, Brahmanical sources are Puranas, Chanakyas Arthashastra, Vishakhadattas Mudrarakshasa, Somadevas Kathasaritsagara and Kshemendras Brihatkathamanjari. Buddhist sources are Dipavamsa, Mahavamsa, Mahavamsa tika and Mahabodhivamsa, very little is known about Chandraguptas youth and ancestry. What is known is gathered from later classical Sanskrit literature, as well as classical Greek, many Indian literary traditions connect him with the Nanda Dynasty in modern-day Bihar in eastern India. More than half a millennium later, the Sanskrit drama Mudrarakshasa calls him a Nandanvaya, Chandragupta was born into a family left destitute by the death of his father, chief of the migrant Mauryas, in a border fray. Mudrarakshasa uses terms like kula-hina and Vrishala for Chandraguptas lineage, according to Bharatendu Harishchandras translation of the play, his father was the Nanda king Mahananda and his mother was a barbers wife named Mora, hence the surname Maurya

26.
Diodotus I
–
Diodotus I Soter was Seleucid satrap of Bactria, rebelled against Seleucid rule soon after the death of Antiochus II in c.255 or 246 BC, and wrested independence for his territory. This event is recorded by Trogus, Prol,4,5, where he is called Theodotus, Strabo xi.515. The name apparently is related to the title Soter he uses for himself and his power seems to have extended over the neighbouring provinces. Diodotus was a contemporary, a neighbour, and probably an ally of Andragoras, the satrap of Parthia and their cities were Bactra, and Darapsa, and several others. Among these was Eucratidia, which was named after its ruler. The newly declared King married a daughter, born c.266 BC, of Antiochus II Theos, the Greco-Bactrians became cut from direct contacts with the Greek world. Overland trade continued at a rate, while sea trade between Greek Egypt and Bactria developed. When Seleucus II in 239 BC attempted to subjugate the rebels in the east, it appears he, of Diodotus I we possess gold, silver and bronze coins, some of which are struck in the name of Antiochos. Diodotus Soter appears also on coins struck in his memory by the later Graeco-Bactrian kings Agathocles, cf. AV Sallet, Die Nachfolger Alexanders d. Gr. in Baktrien und Indien, Percy Gardner, Catal. of the Coins of the Greek and Scythian Kings of Bactria and India

Diodotus I
–
"Pedigree" coin of Agathocles, with the effigy of Diodotus, the Greek inscription reads: ΔΙΟΔΟΤΟΥ ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ - "(of) Diodotus the Saviour".
Diodotus I
–
Diodotus c. 250 BC.
Diodotus I
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Gold coin of Diodotus I c. 250 BC. The Greek inscription reads: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΔΙΟΔΟΤΟΥ - "(of) King Diodotus".
Diodotus I
–
Gold stater of Diodotus in the name of the Seleucid emperor Antiochus I Soter, c. 250 BCE. Diodotus effectively declared his independence from Seleucid control by placing his own portrait on the obverse of the coin, and replacing Antiochos's preferred deity Apollo with the Zeus shown on this coin.

27.
Hebrew alphabet
–
Historically, there have been two separate abjad scripts to write Hebrew. In the remainder of this article, the term Hebrew alphabet refers to the Jewish square script unless otherwise indicated, the Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters. It does not have case, but five letters have different forms used at the end of a word. Hebrew is written right to left. Originally, the alphabet was an abjad consisting only of consonants, as with other abjads, such as the Arabic alphabet, scribes later devised means of indicating vowel sounds by separate vowel points, known in Hebrew as niqqud. In both biblical and rabbinic Hebrew, the letters א ה ו י‎ are also used as matres lectionis to represent vowels. There is a trend in modern Modern Hebrew toward the use of matres lectionis to indicate vowels that have traditionally gone unwritten, the paleo-Hebrew alphabet was used in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The Samaritans, who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use the paleo-Hebrew alphabet, after the fall of the Persian Empire in 330 BCE, Jews used both scripts before settling on the Assyrian form. The square Hebrew alphabet was adapted and used for writing languages of the Jewish diaspora – such as Karaim, the Judeo-Arabic languages, Judaeo-Spanish. In the traditional form, the Hebrew alphabet is an abjad consisting only of consonants and it has 22 letters, five of which use different forms at the end of a word. Also, a system of points to indicate vowels, called niqqud, was developed. In modern forms of the alphabet, as in the case of Yiddish and to some extent Modern Hebrew, today, the trend is toward full spelling with the weak letters acting as true vowels. When used to write Yiddish, vowels are indicated, using letters, either with or without niqqud-diacritics, except for Hebrew words. To preserve the proper vowel sounds, scholars developed several different sets of vocalization, one of these, the Tiberian system, eventually prevailed. Aaron ben Moses ben Asher, and his family for generations, are credited for refining and maintaining the system. These points are used only for special purposes, such as Biblical books intended for study. The Tiberian system also includes a set of marks, called trope. These are shown below the normal form in the following table, although Hebrew is read and written from right to left, the following table shows the letters in order from left to right

28.
Citadel
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A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a fortress, castle, or fortified center, the term is a diminutive of city and thus means little city, so called because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. It is positioned to be the last line of defense, should the enemy breach the other components of the fortification system, a citadel is also a term of the third part of a medieval castle, with higher walls than the rest. It was to be the last line of defense before the keep itself, some of the oldest known structures which have served as citadels were built by the Indus Valley Civilization, harappan, where the citadel represented a centralised authority. The main citadel in Indus Valley was almost 12 meters tall, the purpose of these structures, however, remains debated. Though the structures found in the ruins of Mohenjo-daro were walled, rather, they may have been built to divert flood waters. The most well-known is the Acropolis of Athens, but nearly every Greek city-state had one – the Acrocorinth famed as a strong fortress. In a much later period, when Greece was ruled by the Latin Empire, rebels who took power in the city but with the citadel still held by the former rulers could by no means regard their tenure of power as secure. One such incident played an important part in the history of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire, the Hellenistic garrison of Jerusalem and local supporters of the Seleucids held out for many years in the Acra citadel, making Maccabean rule in the rest of Jerusalem precarious. When finally gaining possession of the place, the Maccabeans pointedly destroyed and razed the Acra, a city where the citadel held out against an invading army was not considered conquered. In the Philippines The Ivatan people of the islands of Batanes often built fortifications to protect themselves during times of war. They built their so-called idjangs on hills and elevated areas. These fortifications were likened to European castles because of their purpose. Usually, the entrance to the castles would be via a rope ladder that would only be lowered for the villagers. In time of war the citadel in many cases afforded retreat to the living in the areas around the town. For example, during the Dutch Wars of 1664-67, King Charles II of England constructed a Royal Citadel at Plymouth, barcelona had a great citadel built in 1714 to intimidate the Catalans against repeating their mid-17th- and early-18th-century rebellions against the Spanish central government. A similar example is the Citadella in Budapest, Hungary, the Citadelle of Québec still survives as the largest citadel still in official military operation in North America. It is home to the Royal 22nd Regiment of Canada, citadels since the mid 20th century, are commonly military command and control centres built to resist attack commonly aerial or nuclear bombardment. The Military citadels under London such as the underground complex beneath the Ministry of Defense called Pindar is one such example

29.
Pashto
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Pashto, known in Persian literature as Afghānistani and in Urdu and Hindi literature as Paṭhānī, is the South-Central Asian language of the Pashtuns. Its speakers are called Pashtuns or Pukhtuns and sometimes Afghans or Pathans and it is an Eastern Iranian language, belonging to the Indo-European family. Pashto is one of the two languages of Afghanistan, and it is the second-largest regional language of Pakistan, mainly spoken in the west and northwest of the country. Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Areas are almost 100% Pashto-speaking, while it is the majority language of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pashto is the main language among the Pashtun diaspora around the world. The total number of Pashto-speakers is estimated to be 45–60 million people worldwide, Pashto belongs to the Northeastern Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian branch, but Ethnologue lists it as Southeastern Iranian. Pashto has two main groups, “soft” and “hard”, the latter known as Pakhto. As a national language of Afghanistan, Pashto is primarily spoken in the east, south, and southwest, the exact numbers of speakers are unavailable, but different estimates show that Pashto is the mother tongue of 45–60% of the total population of Afghanistan. In Pakistan Pashto is spoken as a first language by about 15. 42% of Pakistans 170 million people and it is the main language of the Pashtun-majority regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and northern Balochistan. It is also spoken in parts of Mianwali and Attock districts of the Punjab province and in Islamabad, modern Pashto-speaking communities are found in the cities of Karachi and Hyderabad in Sindh. Other communities of Pashto speakers are found in Tajikistan, and further in the Pashtun diaspora, there are also communities of Pashtun descent in the southwestern part of Jammu and Kashmir. Pashto is one of the two languages of Afghanistan, along with Dari. Since the early 18th century, all the kings of Afghanistan were ethnic Pashtuns except for Habibullah Kalakani, Persian as the literary language of the royal court was more widely used in government institutions while Pashto was spoken by the Pashtun tribes as their native tongue. Although officially strengthening the use of Pashto, the Afghan elite regarded Persian as a “sophisticated language, king Zahir Shah thus followed suit after his father Nadir Khan had decreed in 1933, that both Persian and Pashto were to be studied and utilized by officials. Thus Pashto became a language, a symbol for Afghan nationalism. The status of language was reaffirmed in 1964 by the constitutional assembly when Afghan Persian was officially renamed to Dari. The lyrics of the anthem of Afghanistan are in Pashto. In Pakistan, Urdu and English are the two official languages, Pashto has no official status at the federal level. On a provincial level, Pashto is the language of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas

Pashto
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Pashto language on the map of Afghanistan.The brown areas speak Pashto.
Pashto
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The word Pax̌tō written in the Pashto alphabet

30.
Dari language
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Dari or Dari Persian is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the officially recognized and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language. Hence, it is known as Afghan Persian in many Western sources. As defined in the Constitution of Afghanistan, it is one of the two languages of Afghanistan, the other is Pashto. Dari is the most widely spoken language in Afghanistan and the language of approximately 25–50% of the population. The Iranian and Afghan types of Persian are mutually intelligible, with differences found primarily in the vocabulary, in historical usage, Dari refers to the Middle Persian court language of the Sassanids. Dari is a given to the New Persian language since the 10th century, widely used in Arabic. Since 1964, it has been the name in Afghanistan for the Persian spoken there. In Afghanistan, Dari refers to a dialect form of Persian that is the standard language used in administration, government, radio, television. Because of a preponderance of Dari native speakers, who refer to the language as Fārsi. There are different opinions about the origin of the word Dari, the majority of scholars believes that Dari refers to the Persian word dar or darbār, meaning Court, as it was the formal language of the Sassanids. The original meaning of the word dari is given in a notice attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, according to him, Pārsī was the language spoken by priests, scholars, and the like, it is the language of Fars. It is obvious that this refers to the Middle Persian. As for Dari, he says, it is the language of the cities of Madāen, is connected with presence at court. Among the languages of the people of Khorasan and the east, in general, Iranian languages are known from three periods, usually referred to as Old, Middle, and New periods. But it is thought that the first person in Europe to use the term Deri for Dari was Thomas Hyde, at Oxford, in his chief work, ferghana, Samarkand, and Bukhara were starting to be linguistically Darified in originally Khorezmian and Soghdian areas during Samanid rule. Dari Persian spread around the Oxus River region, Afghanistan, and Khorasan after the Arab conquests, the replacement of the Pahlavi script with the Arabic script in order to write the Persian language was done by the Tahirids in 9th century Khorasan. Persian was rooted into Central Asia by the Samanids, the role of lingua franca that Sogdian originally played was succeeded by Persian after the arrival of Islam

31.
List of Edicts of Ashoka
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The following is an overview of Edicts of Ashoka, and where they are located. The translating of these pillars was a point in history. New York, United States, Harper Collins Publishers, chapter 7, Power and Piety, The Maurya Empire, c. A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India, From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, the Geographical Locations of The Rock Edicts of Asoka

List of Edicts of Ashoka
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Distribution of the Edicts of Ashoka

32.
Greco-Buddhism
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Buddhism was then adopted in Central and Northeastern Asia from the 1st century AD, ultimately spreading to China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Siberia, and Vietnam. Alexander founded several cities in his new territories in the areas of the Amu Darya and Bactria, and Greek settlements further extended to the Khyber Pass, Gandhara, and the Punjab region. Following Alexanders death on June 10,323 BC, the Diadochi or Successors founded their own kingdoms in Anatolia, general Seleucus set up the Seleucid Empire, which extended as far as India. Later, the part of the Seleucid Kingdom broke away to form the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, followed by the Indo-Greek Kingdom. The interaction of Greek and Buddhist cultures operated over several centuries until it ended in the 5th century AD with the invasions of the Hephthalite Empire and the expansion of Islam. The length of the Greek presence in Central Asia and northern India provided opportunities for interaction, not only on the artistic, when Alexander invaded Bactria and Gandhara, these areas may already have been under śramanic influence, likely specifically Buddhist and Jain. According to a legend preserved in the Pāli Canon, two merchant brothers from Kamsabhoga in Bactria, Tapassu and Bhallika, visited Gautama Buddha and became his disciples, the legend states that they then returned home and spread the Buddhas teaching. In 326 BC, Alexander conquered the Northern region of India, King Ambhi of Taxila, known as Taxiles, surrendered his city, a notable Buddhist center, to Alexander. Alexander fought a battle against King Porus of Pauravas in the Punjab. Several philosophers, such as Pyrrho, Anaxarchus and Onesicritus, are said to have been selected by Alexander to accompany him in his eastern campaigns, during the 18 months they were in India, they were able to interact with Indian ascetics, generally described as Gymnosophists. Pyrrho returned to Greece and became the first Skeptic and the founder of the school named Pyrrhonism, the Greek biographer Diogenes Laërtius explained that Pyrrhos equanimity and detachment from the world were acquired in India. Few of his sayings are known, but they are clearly reminiscent of śramanic, possibly Buddhist, thought, Nothing really exists. That the best philosophy that which liberates the mind from pleasure, the Indian emperor Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Maurya Empire, re-conquered around 322 BC the northwest Indian territory that had been lost to Alexander the Great. However, contacts were kept with his Greco-Iranian neighbours in the Seleucid Empire, emperor Seleucus I Nicator came to a marital agreement as part of a peace treaty, and several Greeks, such as the historian Megasthenes, resided at the Mauryan court. 58-60 The Greco-Bactrians maintained a strong Hellenistic culture at the door of India during the rule of the Maurya Empire in India, the Greco-Bactrians conquered parts of North India from 180 BC, whence they are known as the Indo-Greeks. They controlled various areas of the northern Indian territory until AD10, zarmanochegas was a śramana who, according to ancient historians such as Strabo, Cassius Dio and Nicolaus of Damascus traveled to Antioch and Athens while Augustus was ruling the Roman Empire. The coins of the Indo-Greek king Menander I, found from Afghanistan to central India, according to the Milinda Pañha, at the end of his reign Menander I became a Buddhist arhat, a fact also echoed by Plutarch, who explains that his relics were shared and enshrined. According to Ptolemy, Greek cities were founded by the Greco-Bactrians in northern India, Menander established his capital in Sagala one of the centers of the blossoming Buddhist culture

33.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker

International Standard Book Number
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A 13-digit ISBN, 978-3-16-148410-0, as represented by an EAN-13 bar code

34.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation

Geographic coordinate system
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Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.